‘God Particle’ Found: Step Back for Religion, Step Forward for the Universe?

The ever elusive ‘God Particle,’ formally known as the Higgs boson in honor of British physicist Peter Higgs, who first theorized the discovery in 1964, has allegedly been discovered after decades of expensive searching, reports The[1]Telegraph[2].

“I think we have it,” said the director general of CERN[3], Rolf-Dieter Heuer. “[It is] a historic milestone.” CERN is the multinational research center headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Joe Incandela, a physicist of the University of California, Santa Barbara, declared the discovery one of the most important in the “last 30 or 40 years.”

The Higgs boson is the final piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, a theoretical model which describes the fundamental particles and forces that control our Universe.

It was first theorised in the 1960s by Edinburgh-based physicist Peter Higgs, amongst others, and is credited for giving all other particles mass. But until now, it has proved impossible to pin down.

To do so, scientists use the LHC to smash together protons at almost the speed of light and scour the debris for traces of particles that sprang into existence for just a fraction of a second before disintegrating.

Higgs, an avowed atheist, reportedly finds the ‘God Particle’ terminology offensive because it shifts focus from science to religion, but he was nonetheless overwhelmed by the discovery:

In even simpler terms, Higgs boson explains how stars, planets and even life was created and solidifies the Big Bang Theory. Without this particle, many physicists believed that the Universe could not exist. It matches the importance of the theory of evolution for biologists.

Believers and people of faith have been in the spin zone since the announcement, claiming that, somehow, the discovery is actually a plus-one in the religion column:

“[The discovery of the God Particle proves that, ‘For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible . . . all things were created by him and for him” (Colossians 1:16),’” quoted one blogger.

Despite this discovery, for now things remain as they always have as it pertains to the elusive question of ‘God’: People will believe the ‘truth” of their choice.